Moderately Confused by Jeff Stahler for May 10, 2024

I don’t think they even make those anymore

Like a gazillion other American kids.. /s.

Life insurance or health insurance or both?

Tom Paxton wrote about one million lawyers, I believe that he wildly underestimated. I suspect any of them formulate insurance policies.

Oh, climb the thing and have some fun.

Insurance companies would not touch the playground equipment we used as children. Death traps, but we were rarely hurt on them, other than a few bumps and bruises. If I went to my mother hurt she would ask “Any blood? Any broken bones? No? Get back out there and play.”. We grew up pretty tough … and loved it. These days if a kid gets a bump, the parents are running to liability lawyers to sue. They are raising a whole generation of wimps.

Now they have playgrounds like Wizzy World where everything is wrapped up in foam to make sure the (not) tough kids don’t get hurt (mild bruise)

We had swings – with actual seats and not slings that compressed the bones – see-saws, slides, and trapeze bars. A very few minor spills, bun burns, and strawberries, but loads of fun.

I fell flat onto my back from the cross bars onto the asphalt ground beneath them. Knocked the wind right out of me. I lay there trying to get my breath back. Once I did I climbed right back up and tried again. No cross bars there any longer, the swings are gone as well as the teeter totters, jungle gym, and the slide has been replaced by wood structure with a plastic slide that is all of 3 ft long. While I was a kid there the ground was cement under the swings and the rest of the playground was mixed #1 and #2 gravel. All of that has been replaced by the matting made from recycled tires.

About 1957, I fell off of one of those things and hurt my hand. The school insisted that I see a doctor. The reason this is still so vivid in my mind is because my father took me instead of my mother.

Also, no more diving boards at public pools.

we had a swing set in the yard that had horses for swings, so it had two main beams with cross bars between on the top of the set. As kids, we would climb up to stand on the top of the swing set and try to touch the black wires that hung above. Don’t know what type of wires they were, but I lived thru it. When I think back to things that we did as kids, there is no way I would have let my kids do most of it. But I did have lots of fun!

We had what seemed to be huge swings at school. The deal was to stand up and swing high enough that you could see over the top bar. I did that and then lowered myself to it back down. I obviously let go with both hands, because I did a double summersault and landed neatly, sitting with my legs curled up under me.

I sprained my wrist.

No weeping and wailing. No teachers running to see if I was OK. I don’t think any of the other students even paid any attention. They probably thought I was showing off.

Go try the teeter-totter.

We are a litigation society. I took only one law course in my entire life. It was on intellectual property and product liability.

A couple was suing a bicycle manufacturer over the death of their son. Their claim was it did not have adequate lighting and that this lack of lighting meant that they should have issued a warning not to operate it at night.

The accident happened on a public street at 10:30 in the evening. The vehicle in question was a tricycle.

Of course the child’s parents had absolutely no responsibility for the accident in allowing their three-year-old ride in the street unsupervised at that hour of night.

…and where’s your helmet! and knee pads! and elbow pads! and………

If the kids today knew how much fun we had as kids, they’d all want to go back in time. Slides, swings, monkey bars and tilt a whirl, until we got sick. And, get this, no adult supervision! Come home when it gets dark.